Over the past 4 years, Haworth DesignLab has continued to evolve as a platform for emerging designers. Launched in 2023, it highlights new perspectives and has grown into an immersive environment for ideas that offer a glimpse of what’s next in design.
At NeoCon, Haworth DesignLab functions as a gallery, exhibition, and cultural experience. It reflects how design continues to evolve, focusing on the thinking, materials, and cultural influences behind each idea.
A Platform for New Perspectives
At its core, Haworth DesignLab functions as a collective. It brings together designers and artists with distinct points of view and creates space for sharing and new ways of thinking.
This approach emphasizes experimentation and innovation. Designers look beyond finished products. They focus on the exploration of new ideas, processes, and systems. The result is a range of perspectives that expands how design can be seen and understood.
From DesignLab to Ongoing Impact
DesignLab is not a singular annual event, but the continuing evolution of what’s next. Participants mentored by Patricia Urquiola develop concepts grounded in community, materiality, and making. For some, the ideas that come out of DesignLab develop into innovations that change the way we think.
In 2024, Common Object Studio co-founders Fernando Ramirez and Justin Beitzel joined the DesignLab cohort with their project Understory. They created an immersive landscape using only bio-based and biodegradable materials. Stools and space dividers formed a layered environment that demonstrated how temporary, low-impact design can still create depth and meaning.
That exploration carried forward through collaboration with BuzziSpace, a Haworth brand. Building on their Haworth DesignLab work, Common Object developed BuzziChicle acoustic lighting and brought its circular design approach into a product context.
The concept considered the full life cycle of materials, from sourcing to disassembly, while maintaining a strong design expression. It showed how early-stage ideas can evolve through ongoing partnership and continue to develop through collaboration.
A 2026 Experience Shaped by Living and Working
The 2026 Haworth DesignLab experience at NeoCon, developed in collaboration with Paved States, extended this thinking into an immersive installation at THE MART. The space became part gallery, part exhibition, and part retail environment, supported by panel discussions and hands-on workshops.
The installation explored the home as a continuous space where living and working merge. A series of vignettes illustrated settings shaped by evolving needs, materials, and culture.
The experience earned a 2026 HiP at NeoCon Award from Interior Design Magazine and highlighted how boundaries between environments continue to blur.
Created in collaboration with Sixtysix and Haworth, the installation emphasized flexibility. It showed how design can support integrated, human-centered ways of living by creating spaces that adapt to support a wider range of needs throughout the day.
Contributions from designers across North America expanded this perspective, bringing a range of approaches to materiality, craft, and spatial experience.
Featured participants included:
Beyond the Exhibit
Beyond the 2026 physical installation, Haworth DesignLab created space for dialogue. Talks, panels, and informal conversations encouraged deeper engagement and allowed ideas to develop in real time.
These interactions extended the impact of the exhibition and reinforced its role within the broader NeoCon experience. Haworth DesignLab became a space where conversation and collaboration mattered as much as what was on display.
Continuing to Evolve
At 4 years in, Haworth DesignLab continues to grow as a platform for exploration. It brings together emerging talent, new ideas, and diverse perspectives that reflect a changing design landscape.
It continues to show the value of being design-forward—creating space for new perspectives and allowing ideas to evolve over time.
